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Contributing to OpenClaw

OpenClaw is open source under the MIT license (copyright OpenClaw Foundation) at github.com/openclaw/openclaw. This page summarises its CONTRIBUTING.md as of 2026-10-18; read that file before your first PR, because the rules are strict and enforced by bots.

What gets accepted​

  • Bugs and small fixes: open a PR directly.
  • New features or architecture changes: open an issue or ask in Discord first. Most features are not accepted into core; upstream asks for them to be built as third-party plugins with the plugin SDK instead.
  • Refactor-only PRs: not accepted unless a maintainer asks for one as part of a concrete fix.
  • Test- or CI-only PRs for failures already red on main: not accepted; maintainers already track those.
  • Questions and setup help: Discord #help, not GitHub issues.

There is a hard cap of 20 open PRs per author; extra PRs are closed automatically.

Good places to help outside core code: skills on ClawHub, plugins, bug reports with a clean reproduction, the official docs (docs bugs have their own issue template), and these community docs.

Development setup​

You need Node 24.16+ or 26.1+ (Node 22, 23 and 25 are unsupported) and pnpm, which the repo pins through packageManager.

git clone https://github.com/openclaw/openclaw.git
cd openclaw
corepack enable
pnpm install --frozen-lockfile
pnpm build
pnpm dev

CONTRIBUTING.md asks for pnpm build && pnpm check && pnpm test before review. For a plugin change, start with the fast lane, pnpm test:extension <name>. If you add or change tests, the repo's AGENTS.md asks the PR to state the wall time of pnpm test <file> --maxWorkers=1.

Pull requests​

  • For non-trivial work, link an issue (Closes #123 or Related: #123).
  • Fill in the PR template: the problem in plain language, user impact, and evidence (focused test output, screenshots, logs).
  • Keep "Allow edits by maintainers" enabled on fork PRs.
  • Do not edit CHANGELOG.md or CHANGELOG/**; release notes are generated at release time.
  • Do not guess who to tag; labels and CODEOWNERS route the review.

Reporting a vulnerability​

Do not open a public issue. Report privately through GitHub security advisories on the repository where the problem lives (openclaw/openclaw for the CLI, Gateway and apps; openclaw/clawhub for ClawHub), or email security@openclaw.ai if unsure. Include severity, impact, the affected component and reproduction steps. See SECURITY.md for the trust model and what counts as in scope.

Community​

See also​